once i had the lamps i wanted to work with, finding shades i liked was an adventure. i had an existing shade that was ok, but it was so unique i didn't think i'd ever find another one like it. then i had a vile shade that came with one of the lamps i bought. i must have purchased 3 or four shades from thrift stores, but could never find a matching pair that i liked. (click on any photo to view a larger version)
then i found this shade, and it really set my heart on having drum shades on the lamps:
(now, here's the part when i strongly urge you to find a drum shade that has the same diameter at the top and the bottom. exactly the same. no taper whatsoever. it will be so. much. easier. to recover the shades if you get a shade with no taper. i thought i'd done that, but alas, i had a bit of taper and discovered its treacheries.)
alas, i couldn't find another shade like my inspirational shade. but then my birthday came and my parents gave me some money for my birthday and i used that to purchase new drum shades from lowe's. at $15 a piece, they were more than i wanted to spend, but sometimes you have to splurge to really get what you want. money spent on something you hate is wasted money anyway.
i hated the pleats on these shades, so i knew i wanted to recover them. i found these really cute pillowcases at a thrift store for $.99, and figured if i ripped the seams, i would probably (hopefully) have enough fabric from each pillowcase to cover a lamp shade.
next, time to demo the shades. luckily, the pleating comes off really easily, as did the trim. you really have to take both off, because you really can't put the fabric on between the existing trims unless you are totally anal and frankly, perfect. plus, if you try to cover over it, the trim will add bulk that i just don't think will look very good. on my shades at least, the trim came off super easy. looks like they just used a teeny bit of hot glue, so it pulled off great.
be sure to be careful during the demo process, because the shade underneath is made of a thin plastic that will bend and/or crease if you are not careful.
next, i masked off the entire shade inside and out and painted the hideous brass supports silver. (see my previous post for this process.) if you get any drips, or if you (like me) had some leftover stickiness from the price tags on your supports, all you need to clean that off is some lacquer thinner. if you get a drip, just use the lacquer thinner to clean it off and start over again.
once your supports are dry and cured (let 'em go for a couple of days since you'll be handling them a lot when you go through the recovering process), you can begin recovering your shades.
i started by cutting off the cream trim of my pillow cases, because i didn't initially want to use that part of the fabric. before i cut, i measured all my folds to make sure they were straight. then i pinned and then clipped everything in place with spring-loaded clothes pins (one of the best tools out there!!). i also should have pressed my crease to make sure i could try to get the straightest cut possible and waste the least fabric. next time, i'll do that for sure.
now it's time to hem the pillowcase fabric. i used fuseable tape (aka stitch witchery, etc.) this time, but next time i would for sure just measure, pin and press the hems and then hot glue them. it's much easier and actually less bulky after all the fuseing i ended up doing. if you are an experienced sewer, you could probably do it all much more efficiently than i did, so it might not be a problem for you. make sure to measure so you get a nice straight end. i started by just hemming the part of the fabric that would go on the top of the shade, because i knew i had extra length on the bottom, so i didn't know where to hem it yet.
now start pinning the fabric in place using your clothes pins. this is very important, because as i found, covering shade is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. sadly, the first difficulty i found is that i didn't have enough fabric to cover the whole shade!
so, now i had to reattach the cream border of the pillow cases to get some extra fabric. i attached it to both ends of the pillow cases so two ends of cream would meet. again, measure to get a good straight hem, press and hem. then attach them to the ends however you can. you want it to look as seamless as possible. i know the next time i do it, it will look much better.
after you get your fabric the right length, start with the clothes pins and play until you get it right. initially, i wanted to have the fabric cover the shade very tightly, but i found that to be very difficult with the amount of fabric i had and the treacherous taper of the shade. if you have enough fabric and patience, you can do it i'm sure, and i'll try for it next time. but for this time, i decided to have the bottom of the shade be tight fitting (since it had the larger diameter) and to pleat/bunch the fabric at the top of the shade in a casual manner. thankfully, the casual look fits with the casual feel of the fabric.
again, i can't say it enough, pin, pin and re-pin with your clothes pins until you get everything exactly as you want it! only then should you start putting things firmly in their place. at this point you also must figure out where to hem the bottom of your fabric, pin it (make sure it's straight!) press it, and hem it.
i used my glue gun to attach the fabric to the shade. and to burn myself. repeatedly. (i just don't trust cold heat glue guns, but i just might have to buy one after this experience.) ultimately, i decided to line up the fabric with the bottom of the shade instead of folding it over the bottom and attaching it to the inside. i liked the look and it was much easier to keep things tightly fitting that way. for the top, i folded the hemmed fabric over and attached it inside.
for a more finished look, i wanted too add some kind of trim and decided on grosgrain ribbon. in the store, i couldn't decide between orange and pink, so i bought both and decided to look at them with the fabric before i decided.
after looking at them both on the fabric, i felt that the bright pink provided more contrast and a pop of color than the orange, so i went with the pink. i attached the ribbon around the bottom of the shade with the glue gun, careful to measure periodically and make sure that the ribbon was the same distance from the bottom of the shade all the way around. and since i had some orange and pink buttons, i decided to make a faux bow and attach a button to the middle of the bow. this added to to the funky casual look i was going for.
and here are the lamps and shades together!
i'm so glad i rewired the lamps with three way sockets. first, i got polarized sockets and plugs, which are safer, and now there's no question about what wattage the lamps can handle. second, the ability to change the mood of the room with the lighting is really nice. if, unlike me, you are lucky enough to have some romance going on in your room, the lowest level is nice, and if you want to do some work or reading in your bed, you've got enough light for that too!
next post, what happened to that first inspirational drum shade?
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